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Ethnicity: a developing research theme in Cardiff University School of Social Sciences Jonathan Scourfield, Jonathan Evans, Ralph Fevre, Stephen Gorard, Katy Greenland, Pat Gregory, William Housley, Trevor Jones, Paul Lambert, Joanna Latimer, Martin O’Neill, Lindsay Prior, Amanda Robinson, Emma Smith, Patrick White
This aim of this research summary is to profile the diverse research projects on ethnicity that have been completed or are currently underway in Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. We are using a broad definition of ethnicity. In Richard Jenkins’s terms 1 , ‘an ethnic group is based […] on the belief shared by its members that, however distantly, they are of common descent’. As such, this summary does not encompass only work on minorities, but also work on majority ethnic groups such as, for example, research on national identity in Wales. Much of the work presented does, however, have a clear focus on ethnic minorities. The paper is divided into five main sections, and the work of different researchers is identified. Members of Cardiff University School of Social Sciences are highlighted in bold text. Contents Ethnic and national identity ____________________________________________2
Welsh nationalism and national identity ________________________________2 Children’s national and civic identities in Wales__________________________3 Interaction and National Identity ______________________________________4 Immigration and identity ____________________________________________6 Methodological debates _______________________________________________6
What is ethnicity? __________________________________________________6 Dealing with ethnicity in quantitative census and survey research ____________8 Ethnicity and health _________________________________________________10
Genetics, religion and identity _______________________________________10 Beliefs and accounts of illness in Cantonese-speaking communities _________10 Action research: The Triangle Project _________________________________11 Racism, discrimination and disadvantage ________________________________13
Psychological approaches to prejudice_________________________________13 Ethnic minorities and the labour market _______________________________14 Ethnicity, education and social justice _________________________________17 The policing of minority groups______________________________________22 Media images ____________________________________________________24 The minority ethnic experience in specific communities___________________25 Political participation________________________________________________29
Ethnic minorities and the National Assembly for Wales ___________________29 1
Jenkins, R. (1997) Rethinking Ethnicity. London, Sage, pp9-10 1
Ethnic and national identity Welsh nationalism and national identity A series of journal articles by Ralph Fevre has considered Welsh nationalism from the standpoint of a variety of sociological theories (Weberian theory, symbolic interactionism and so on). The common thread of all this work was that nationalist groups and organisations were engaged in a variety of activities that were intended to protect monopolies in resources such as jobs and houses. The characteristics of the activities and resources varied considerably from one group to another and a variety of means were used to accomplish social closure but all of the groups and organisations employed cultural resources and particularly the Welsh language to this end. The Nations and Nationalism article developed a new theory to apply to the behaviour or nationalist organisations building on the work of Anderson and Gellner who owed a lot to Weber but did not acknowledge it (for the most part). It was in the tradition of the work on nationalism and ethnicity pioneered by (Randall) Collins and also by Neuwirth. It presented a complex theory of the way the carriers of nationalist ideas took those ideas out into the wider population. The theory also made room for differences between nationalist groupings according to class position. The most recent article in Research in Social Movements Conflict and Change looked at the way these organisations were coping with the opportunity offered by devolution to broaden the basis of their popular support. In effect a lot of the cultural resources used to protect monopolies in particular sectors and parts of the country were being played down or even jettisoned (particularly in Plaid Cymru) with predictable effects in terms of rising internal tensions in Welsh nationalism. On the other hand, Plaid Cymru was somewhat surprisingly, probably the most inclusive of the political parties of Wales in the immediate post-devolution period. References Denney D. Borland J. and Fevre R., ‘The Social Construction of Nationalism: racism and conflict in Wales’, Contemporary Wales, 4, 149-165, 1991. Borland J. Fevre R. and Denney D., ‘Nationalism and Community in North West Wales’, Sociological Review, 40, 1, 49-72, 1992. Fevre R. Borland J. and Denney D., ‘Class, Status and Party in the Analysis of Nationalism: Lessons from Max Weber’, Nations and Nationalism, 3, 4, 559-577, 1997. Fevre R., Borland J. and Denney D. ‘Nation, Community and Conflict: Housing Policy and Immigration in North Wales’ in R. Fevre and A. Thompson (eds.) Nation, Identity and Social Theory - Perspectives from Wales¸ Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999. Chaney, P., and Fevre, R. ‘Welsh Nationalism and the Challenge of “Inclusive” Politics’, Research in Social Movements Conflict and Change, 23, 227-254, 2001.
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Fevre and Thompson’s edited collection updated the work of earlier writers on national identity in Wales (Hechter, Kleif, Williams) which was reviewed in their introductory chapter on ‘Social Theory and Welsh Identities’. This chapter was widely praised for the way in which it brought new social theory into the context of the national question. This theme was later developed in the Nations and Nationalism article, which seems to be the only respected review of the weaknesses and unexpected strengths of sociological theory (from the precursors of the classics to the present day) in respect of ideas of nation and national identity. References Fevre R., and Thompson A. (eds.) Nation, Identity and Social Theory - Perspectives from Wales¸ Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999. Fevre R. and Thompson A. ‘Social Theory and Welsh Identities’ in R. Fevre and A. Thompson (eds.) Nation, Identity and Social Theory - Perspectives from Wales¸ Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999. Thompson A. and Fevre R. ‘The National Question: Sociological Reflections on Nation and Nationalism’ Nations and Nationalism, 7, 3, 297-315, 2001.
Children’s national and civic identities in Wales This project was conducted by Jonathan Scourfield, Andrew Davies, Bella Dicks, Mark Drakeford and Sally Holland, with funding from the University of Wales Board of Celtic Studies. The project used qualitative research methods to engage with children in ‘middle childhood’ about their views on places, cultures and institutions. The aims of the project were as follows: -
To explore the identifications of children in Wales with places and cultures. To explore how children regard their relationship to civil society. In the context of devolution, to contribute to the involvement of children and young people in Welsh democracy. To contribute to wider debates about the meaning of ‘Welshness’. To contribute to the emerging body of sociological research on children’s perspectives, by focusing on a topic which has hitherto received very little attention.
Six primary schools were selected to take part in the research, chosen to represent a purposive sample of the diversity of life in Wales. These were selected on the basis of information about the socio-economic, ethnic, geographical and linguistic character of their various locations obtained from a variety of sources. One hundred and five children were involved in the research. The researcher conducted 18 focus groups and 54 in-depth interviews. The children were drawn from the 8-11 age bracket from a range of social classes, ability ranges, ethnicities, nationalities and linguistic identities. In terms of the more general sociological interest of the project, the research team is developing some ideas about how children in this age group negotiate their national
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identities. There is considerable room here for interdisciplinary debate. One influential strand of research on this topic comes from developmental psychology, whose paradigm for understanding childhood has been challenged by sociologists of childhood in recent years. The research data on children’s identities in Wales would challenge sociologists’ outright rejection of developmentalism, but also point to the limitations of developmental accounts of the formation of national identity in childhood. It is important to preserve a focus on human agency in the construction of identities, the negotiation of identities in social interaction and the intersection of national identity with other identities such as, for example, gender. The existing developmental research on this topic does not capture these dimensions of identity construction. Papers will be written on various aspects of the children’s constructions of commonality and difference, including their reference to language and language use, sport, accent and imagery of Wales, in addition to the major themes of media representations and civil identities. It was clear from the fieldwork that accent and locality were especially important to the children’s identities in all six locations. There was a great deal of reference to the Welsh language as a marker of Welshness from children in both English and Welsh medium schools. Interestingly, the minority ethnic children we spoke to (from one school only) did not use ‘Welsh’ as an umbrella identity. Many of the White children the researchers spoke to, however, were keen to preserve an ethnically inclusive version of Welshness. References Scourfield, J. and Davies, A (2002) ‘Children’s negotiation of national identities’. Paper presented at the annual conference of the British Sociological Association in Leicester. Scourfield, J., Davies, A. and Holland, S. (forthcoming, 2003) ‘Wales and Welshness in middle childhood’, Contemporary Wales.
Interaction and National Identity William Housley has carried out a number of discourse analytic studies within a range of settings in which national identity is a salient feature (Housley and Fitzgerald, 2001, 2002, 2003). These studies provide a means of exploring national identity as both a situated accomplishment and product of interaction within a number of organisational and institutional sites. The edited collection Language, Interaction and National Identity (Hester and Housley, 2002) is published as part of the Cardiff Papers Series in Qualitative Research. It consists of a number of international studies of national identity and interaction. These include an examination of categorisation practices in a multi-ethnic class (Koole and Hanson, 2002), an exploration of symbolic power and collective identifications (Widmer, 2002), an exploration of Japanese - American Identity during the second world war (Berard, 2002) and an investigation of political discourse, rhetoric and Australian national identity (Rapley and Augoustinos, 2002). Within the context of contemporary Wales, Housley’s research has documented the
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centrality and import of categorisation work in understanding different forms of national identity narrative and practice. The 1997 referendum campaign and it’s coverage within news-media provides an excellent example of how such forms of categorisation and narrative concerning nation and identity were utilised by both sides of the devolution campaign (Housley and Fitzgerald, 2001, 2002). The organic character of the ‘public sphere’ is suffused with forms of moral practice and mundane actions that are often hidden from view in traditional accounts of culture, identity and political change. Housley’s work has explored and identified how these microprocesses are an important feature of sociological approaches to understanding national identity. Central to this approach is the empirical identification of categorisation practices within different social contexts. Consequently, the studies demonstrate the way in which ‘difference’ is put to work in a variety of organisational and institutional settings and during political events such as referendum campaigns. References: Berard, T. (2002) Japanese American’ Identity and the Problem of Multiple Description: Disjunctive Versions of the Japanese Exclusion Order in S. Hester and W. Housley (eds.) Language, Interaction and National Identity. Aldershot, Ashgate, pp144 - 168. Hester, S. and Housley W. (2002) Language, Interaction and National Identity. Aldershot, Ashgate. Housley, W. and Fitzgerald, R. (2001) Categorization, Narrative and Devolution in Wales, Sociological Research Online, Volume 6:2. Housley, W. and Fitzgerald, R. (2002) National Identity, Categorisation and Debate in S. Hester and W. Housley Language, Interaction and National Identity. Aldershot, Ashgate, pp38 - 59. Housley, W. and Fitzgerald, R. (2003) Media, Policy and Debate, TEXT (awaiting issue) Koole, T. and Hanson, M. (2002) The category ‘Moroccan’ in a multi-ethnic class in S. Hester and W. Housley (eds.) Language, Interaction and National Identity. Aldershot, Ashgate, pp 211 - 232. Rapley, M. and Augoustinos, M. (2002) National Identity as a Rhetorical Resource in S. Hester and W. Housley Language, Interaction and National Identity. Aldershot, Ashgate, pp194 - 210. Widmer, J. (2002) Symbolic Power and Collective Identifications in S. Hester and W.Housley (eds.) Language, Interaction and National Identity. Aldershot, Ashgate, pp102 - 143.
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Immigration and identity One part of Katy Greenland’s PhD was a longitudinal study of the adjustment of a cohort of Japanese students studying in a British University. Part of this data set (which looked at the participants’ attitudes towards British people) is described in the section below on the psychology of prejudice. A second paper, which examines the stress that that the participants experienced, is still in submission (Greenland and Brown, in submission). This paper draws on the acculturation literature (e.g., Berry, Kim, Minde, and Mok, 1987), which suggests that individuals can use a variety of different strategies to adjust to living in a different culture. Clearly, individuals with different cultural backgrounds and different experiences may have different issues involved in adjustment. For example, Berry et al. argue that the experiences of refugees are very different to the experiences of sojourning students. Overall, however, Berry et al. argue that integration is the strategy associated with least stress and most successful adjustment over the long term. According to their definition, integration is when individuals are actively involved in the new culture, but still retain a strong sense of their original cultural identity. Interestingly, research is only just beginning to explore how the attitudes and policies of the ‘host’ culture (including the prejudices and expectations of the wider population) can actively influence the adjustment of immigrants. Greenland hopes to explore some of these issues in more depth in the next couple of years. References Greenland, K. & Brown, R. J. (in submission). Acculturation and acculturative stress among Japanese students in the United Kingdom. Berry, J. W., Kim, U., Minde, T., & Mok, D. (1987). Comparative studies of acculturative stress. International Migration Review, 21, 491-511.
Methodological debates What is ethnicity? Contribution by Stephen Gorard The standard question in a survey instrument about ethnicity gives the researcher a great deal of trouble, but is worth persevering with even so. The chief problem is the lack of agreement about what this phenomenon constitutes. The standard question would be based on that used by the Office for the Population Census (Table 1). As can be seen this list is a peculiar mixture of skin colour, other racial characteristics, country of ‘origin’ and primary state religion. Table 1- Ethnic groups 1991 census Main group White Black groups
White Black Caribbean
Black African
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Black other
Indian sub-continent Chinese/other groups Born in Ireland
Indian Chinese Born in Ireland
Pakistani Asian other
Bangladeshi Other
The situation was improved somewhat in the classification for the 2001 census (Table 2), largely by the addition of the ‘mixed’ category. But it is still not clear whether a respondent with white skin born in India would be ‘Indian’ or ‘White other’. With the addition of ‘Irish’ (and ‘Scottish’ in Scotland, but not Welsh in Wales) as opposed to ‘Born in Ireland’ it is no longer clear whether these categories are intended to be based on area of birth, area of residence, language or self-attribution? Can someone be Black and Irish for example? The same applies to Asian British and Black British. Is ‘Indian’, for example, a description of birth place, parental birth place, or something vaguer? How can ‘British’ be a sub-set of White, and also a modifier for ‘Asian British’, for example? Table 2 - Ethnic groups 2001 census Ethnic group White Mixed
British Irish Other White White and Black White and Black White and Asian Caribbean African Asian or Asian Indian Pakistani Bangladeshi British Black or Black Caribbean African Other Black British Chinese or other Chinese Any other
Other mixed Other Asian
Most crucially, how mixed does a respondent have to be in order to be classified as mixed? Are we not all mixed to a great extent? Consider the fact that as I have two parents, four grand-parents, eight great grand-parents and so on, then 40 generations ago I had 240 antecedents, numbering over one trillion (one thousand billion) people. If each generation, for the sake of argument, reproduced on average after every 25 years, then 40 generations represents 1,000 years. Therefore, I had more ancestors 1,000 years ago than there were people alive at that time (more even than everyone who has ever been alive, even allowing for considerable consanguinity). Put another way, as recently as 500 years ago (the era of the Tudor monarchs and ‘discovery’ of the USA perhaps) everyone in the entire world must have been related to me. The notion of ‘pure’ ethnic groups in terms of genetics or ancestry is therefore somewhat unrealistic. If, on the other hand, ethnicity is defined by our shared local cultures and patterns of behaviour, this means that a change of lifestyle (or country) could lead to a change of ethnic group (meaning therefore that we can alter our ethnicity by altering our circumstances). Perhaps the concept of ethnicity has become so complex and delicate that it has passed its usefulness (Gorard 2003). Reference: Gorard, S. (2003) Quantitative methods in social science, London: Continuum
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Dealing with ethnicity in quantitative census and survey research Contribution by Paul Lambert This methodological research looks at how we analyse ethnic differences in social science research – specifically, at what we do when we try and use quantitative analytical techniques to consider ethnic differences in census or survey datasets. It is motivated by a basic problem with such forms of analysis. On the one hand, a highly consistent message coming from sociological theorising of the concept of ethnicity is the ‘paradigm of diversity’, the idea that identifiable ethnic differences are complex, dynamic, multifaceted and multidimensional. On the other, quantitative techniques generally prefer the simplest possible variable operationalisations of sociological concepts, and have difficulty dealing with multifaceted multidimensional measures. This is exacerbated in the case of analyses of ethnic differences by the typically sparse representation of many ethnic minority groups. In consequence, common practices in the quantitative analysis of ethnic differences, both in the UK and elsewhere, are the ‘crude’ combination of multiple categories into ‘simplistic’ variable indicators. As an example, in Britain sociologists often argue that researchers must distinguish between categories in terms of country of ancestral origins, religion, language spoken at home, visible skin colour, subjective ethnic identity, and immigrant status. They should also be sensitive to the circumstances of people with mixed parental ethnic origins as defined by any of these terms. This can lead to a bewildering number of different ethnic permutations and categories. In contrast, quantitative analyses more usually proceed with a dramatically curtailed representation of ethnic differences – it is common to see social science reports where all ethnic difference is reduced to ‘white’ versus ‘ black’ versus ‘Asian’, or indeed simply ‘white’ versus ‘non-white’. This research asks whether it is possible to find a middle ground between the positions. A partial solution has been the adoption of ‘official’ ethnic identity categories, in the UK the OPCS census schemes of around a dozen categories of ethnic groups, which are felt to mark both significant and measurable boundaries. Nevertheless these categories remain ‘crude’, insensitive to certain plausible differences, in the eyes of many theorists of ethnicity. The method considered here and compared against such official classifications, involves retaining the maximum number of potential categories recommended by whichever positions, but then summarising them in terms of quantitative scores. This would allow a subsequent index variable, consisting of those scores, to be treated as a continuous measure of ‘ethnic difference’. (The advantage for quantitative analytical techniques being that a single continuous variable is much more easily incorporated into multivariate analyses, and is less vulnerable to extreme sparsity in the representation of certain scored categories). We consider assigning such scores in terms of a statistical model which, effectively, predicts ethnic category membership as a function of a number of variables felt to be relevant to social stratification divisions (such as measures of demographic differences, education levels, and labour market participation). These produce statistics which can be taken to indicate ‘ethnic difference as relevant to the social stratification structure’ within any given country or time period. We experiment with different models on a number of British datasets, and also repeat the process using
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survey datasets from 15 other countries as provided under the ‘LIS’ harmonised dataset collection. Subsequently, we evaluate the attractions or otherwise of these scores as compared against the best available alternative measures of ethnic difference in quantitative survey research. The table below shows the structure of such scores as they were assigned to a variety of category permutations in British data.
SOR category scores, selected models, 1994 UK survey datasets Subjective identity : W: White / Bc: Black-Carribean / I: Indian / Aa: African Asian / P: Pakistani / Bg: Bangladeshi; Birthplace : U: in UK / A: not in UK; Language : E: speaks English at home / L: non-English; Religion : Mu: Muslim / H: Hindu / S: Sikh / C: Christian Family Survey
? -500
and
W Bc
W Bc
I
I
-300 -100 100 P 300
Working
Lives Policy Studies Institute survey
W-U W-A Bc-A,U I-E P-E Bg-E I-L
W Bc
W Bc-A
W-C Bc-C
I-E Bc-U I-L
IPBg-C
Aa I
P P-L
500 Bg-L 700 ?
P Bg
PBg-E P-L Bg-L
I-H,S I-Mu
P-Mu Bg-Mu
Bg Bg
The success or otherwise of this method will depend upon how realistic it is, within any given country, to map ethnic category differences into a single dimension of scores. By and large our finding is that in most cases a low dimensional space does seem to be a realistic summary, illustrated in the table above by the relative consistency of category locations across the different models. When used as a summary variable in themselves, such scores were seen to usually have roughly equivalent strengths to more conventional alternative methods of analysing ethnic minority categories, with some exceptions where they could be presented as clearly favourable. References
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Lambert PS. 2002a. Quantitative Representations of Ethnic Difference? Presented at ISA RC-28 On Social Stratification and Mobility: Integrating Theory and Research, Nuffield College, Oxford, and http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/rc28/Papers/lambert.pdf Lambert PS. 2002b. Three Developments in the Statistical Modelling of Social Survey Data: An assessment of statistical and substantive merits. Lancaster: PhD Thesis, Lancaster University. 372 pp. Lambert PS, Penn RD. 2001. SOR models and Ethnicity data in LIS and LES: Country by Country Report. Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244-1020: Luxembourg Employment Study Paper No. 21, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. 71 pp
Ethnicity and health Genetics, religion and identity A study of Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain, funded by the ESRC (Joanna Latimer with Sophie Gilliat-Ray, Stephen Pattison and Angus Clarke). This study represents a collaboration between the Religious Studies Department in Cardiff, the University of Wales College of Medicine and Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. The practice of consanguineous marriage within population groups that share a Muslim religious identity remains common, and brings a disproportionate risk of recessively inherited genetic disorders. This interdisciplinary study will investigate how Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain transmit information about genetics across different generations and make decisions about genetic testing, especially in relation to health care and religious professional opinion. The project will particularly examine the role of Islam in accounting for genetic disorders and in helping families to care for affected members. By understanding the complex socio-religious context of decision-making, the project aims to improve the delivery of genetics services for a population group disproportionately affected by genetic disease and socio-economic deprivation. The research will gather qualitative data through twenty extended family case-studies with Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain.
Beliefs and accounts of illness in Cantonese-speaking communities Lindsay Prior has been involved in two studies into the health of members of ethnic minorities. One project concerns infant feeding patterns in the Syhetti speaking community in Cardiff. This has been conducted in conjunction with Dr Kamila Hawthorne and Prof. Roisin Pill of the Department of General Practice, University of Wales College of Medicine. Another study, funded by the Health Education Authority in England, was concerned with beliefs and accounts of illness in Cantonese-speaking communities. A paper that arose from this study (Prior et al., 2000) examined lay accounts of illness and health
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gathered - by means of eight focus groups – from people living in two Cantonesespeaking communities in England. The paper focuses on the manner in which Cantonese speakers recruit and mobilise various agents – such as traditional Chinese medicine, spirits, demons, food and the weather – to describe and explain aspects of their bodily and mental wellbeing. As well as providing information on what Cantonese speakers say about such matters, the data are also used in the paper to indicate how a concentration on ‘accounts’, rather than on ‘beliefs’, enables sociology to side-step a concern with the subjective and psychological and focus, instead, on what is publicly available and verifiable. Reference: Prior, l. Pang, L.C. and See, B.H. (2000) Beliefs and accounts of illness. Views from two Cantonese-speaking communities in England. Sociology of Health and Illness, 6:22:815-39.
Action research: The Triangle Project The Triangle Project is an action research project, funded under the Welsh Assembly Government’s Sustainable Health Action Research Programme (SHARP). The action research that Pat Gregory has been involved in is not focussed specifically on ethnicity, but due to the large and diverse minority ethnic population in Riverside, the issue is prominent. Riverside is a city centre district, with a population of about 6 thousand. Technically it is South Riverside, part of the Riverside ward, which also contains the areas of Pontcanna and Canton. The whole ward is 11th poorest (out of 28) in Cardiff on the Wales Index of Multiple Deprivation. The only information which exists at sub-ward level is for income. On that basis, the three subwards which make up South Riverside are 5th , 7th and 12th poorest out of the 163 subwards of Cardiff. Riverside is one of the most culturally diverse areas in Wales with about 30 mother tongues spoken. On the last census 23% of the population was recorded as non-white. It is accepted that that was an under-representation, and that on the 2001 census that is expected to be at least 50%. The largest minority ethnic groups are: Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sikh, Mandarin Chinese and Somali. Other communities include: African/Caribbean, Indian (both Hindi and Tamil speaking), Malaysian, Arabic speaking including Yemeni, Libyan and Egyptian, Irish and Sudanese. In the initial round of action research in the area, people were asked what they saw as the important issues for taking action to improve health and well-being in the area. Five main issues emerged.
s s s s s
Access to services Activities for women Mental Health The fragmentation of the community Resources for young people
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Initiatives that have developed through the action research process in relation to these issues, and that are relevant to a working paper on ethnicity, include: Women in Action Swimming Group: Development of a women-only group with the main function of providing women, who for cultural or religious reasons need women-only swimming, with transport to the only appropriate daytime facilities in Cardiff. The group has obtained one year’s funding, and has now formed a committee to apply for a second year. It is a group mainly of Bangladeshi and Somali women, although women from other communities participate on a more casual basis. The development of this group has been in partnership with Jasmin Rahman of the Barefoot Project. Our projects funded the pilot of two terms swimming sessions. Swimming was the single most asked for activity for women. When the project was started, it was to test the idea that to offer something that is clearly seen as needed would lead to the development of useful reciprocal relationships for future projects. This has proved to be the case. Many of the women who originally joined the group have gone on to obtain paid work, enter education, start businesses and join other groups. The relationships built up have also given the researchers a group of contacts to call on for information and feedback. They have also brought new members into the group. Riverside Women’s Network and Community and Career Development Skills for Women: Riverside Women’s Network hosted a series of lunchtime meetings for local women and local voluntary sector and health service professionals. Consultation was carried out in first meeting of the group, and in subsequent meetings people came and gave information about subjects that were requested. (For example, a yoga demonstration, and discussion about physical exercise). One of the needs that arose was to be able to get jobs. The Community and Career Development course aimed to help local women, particularly, but not exclusively, from Minority Ethnic communities, to begin to learn the language and skills of community development work, and also skills of applying for work in that field. The course ran from October to December 2002, and was accredited by Cardiff University Department of Lifelong Learning under their Widening Participation Scheme. Thirteen women enrolled, from a number of different communities, and nine completed the course. One course member left to take up work, and five other members of the group obtained some sort of work during the course. The aim was to run a course that was accessible and useful, and also to draw out some ideas of what can be done to enable widening participation in this area. Riverside Cultural Celebration: The planning group for this event came together at a meeting Pat Gregory facilitated to feedback her initial results to the community. Planned as an event to celebrate the diversity of the area, and as a way to find out more about each other, and build relationships, the first RCC took place in March 2002. It was held in Kitchener
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School, had performance, food and music, and attracted an extremely diverse group of about 200 people. The cultural celebration has just been awarded Arts Council of Wales cultural diversity funding for a second celebration in April this year. The funding will enable more of an emphasis on outcomes, with artists working with community groups to produce exhibitions including information about culture, food and fashion, CDs and a report booklet (available from Pat Gregory and Martin O’Neill). Participatory methods of research will also be used during the event. The process of planning for and organising this event has shown how little knowledge people in different communities have of each other’s lives and customs, but also ways of starting to address that.
Racism, discrimination and disadvantage Psychological approaches to prejudice Katy Greenland’s main research interests are in the area of prejudice and discrimination. By discrimination, she means behaviour (positive or negative) that is based on an individual’s group membership: this can include decision making as a component of institutional racism, open racial hatred, and the more subtle, but very common forms of discrimination such as dislike and avoidance. Greenland’s research explores the emotional processes involved in discrimination. In particular, she is interested in the way that prejudice is often associated with anxiety. For example, in one study, (Greenland, Maio, Bernard, & Esses, unpublished) the researchers asked participants how they would feel about working with a number of different national groups. Participants reported the highest levels of anxiety to working with a Chinese or an Indian person, and the lowest levels of anxiety to working with an American person. Stephan and Stephan (1985) have described this as intergroup anxiety: the anxiety that a person feels when interacting (or anticipating interacting) with another person because they are the member of another group. Why do people feel intergroup anxiety? Stephan and Stephan suggest a number of reasons, but few of these have been tested. People may feel intergroup anxiety because they have negative stereotypes about the group. People may also experience intergroup anxiety because they think that members of the other group are very different from themselves. Ironically, people may also experience intergroup anxiety because they want to avoid appearing to be prejudiced. What kinds of effects does intergroup anxiety have? Greenland and Brown (1999) looked at the relation between intergroup anxiety and prejudice in contact between British and Japanese nationals. Among both British and Japanese nationals, intergroup anxiety was associated with more negative feelings about the other group, and more bias in favour of the participants’ own national groups. Interestingly, intergroup anxiety was also associated with previous contact: participants who had had previous contact with the other group had less intergroup anxiety than those who had not. This is consistent with other research that Greenland and colleagues have conducted. For example, Greenland, Masser, and Prentice (2001) looked at teachers’ anxiety in working with a child who was HIV positive. Again, they found that teachers who had
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higher levels of intergroup anxiety were less willing to teach a child who was HIV positive. These teachers were also much less likely to have had contact with someone who was HIV positive in the past. If intergroup anxiety has these kinds of negative effects, then what can we do about it? Unfortunately, this question has not been addressed in the research at all. Greenland is currently working with colleagues to submit a grant application that will look at different interventions to reduce the effects of intergroup anxiety. They will also be looking at some of the current interventions that are used to reduce prejudice (such as educating people about the differences between cultural groups, or highlighting the ways that people may have been prejudiced in the past) since they believe that some of these interventions can actually increase levels of anxiety. In the longer term, Greenland also hopes to explore some of the other emotional experiences associated with prejudice (such as anger, guilt, and shame). References Greenland, K. & Brown, R. J. (1999). Categorisation and intergroup anxiety in contact between British and Japanese nationals. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 503- 522. Greenland, K., Maio, G., Bernard, M. & Esses, V. M. (in preparation). Intergroup anxiety, physiological arousal and message processing. Greenland, K., Masser, B., and Prentice, T. (2001) ‘They’re scared of it’: intergroup determinants of attitudes towards children with HIV. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 2127- 2148. Hewstone, M. & Greenland, K. (2000). Intergroup conflict. International Journal of Psychology, 35, 136- 144. Stephan, W. G. & Stephan, C. W. (1985). Intergroup anxiety. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 157- 177.
Ethnic minorities and the labour market Trevor Jones has undertaken research into the labour market position of ethnic minorities. In 1996, he published Britain’s Ethnic Minorities (Jones 1996). Based on a detailed analysis of the government’s Labour Force Survey data, this study drew extensive comparisons between the socio-economic positions of a range of ethnic groups. It covered family structure, housing, educational attainment, unemployment, patterns of self-employment, and job levels. The study highlighted a growing diversity of circumstances between Britain’s different minority ethnic populations. In particular, it found that there was a sharp divergence between the Muslim Asian groups (people with family origins in Pakistan and Bangladesh) and other ethnic groups. These Muslim Asian groups had by far the worst circumstances of all the ethnic groups in Britain, suffering from extremely high rates of unemployment, poor housing, low educational attainment and more likely to be in lower-level and poorlypaid jobs. On the other hand, the study found evidence of significant upward social
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mobility on the part of some groups. African Asians 2 , Indians and Chinese people in particular demonstrated remarkably high levels of educational attainment (on average), and were as likely (or more likely) than white people to be in professional jobs. The study received national media coverage, and established the theme of diversity that was later confirmed by analysis of the 1994 national survey of ethnic minorities carried out by the PSI (Modood et al. 1997). Some of these themes were later explored in a working paper provided for the 1998 Glasgow Regeneration Alliance Social Inclusion Inquiry (Jones 1998a). This was based on secondary analysis of Census and other data to provide an overview of the position of ethnic minority groups in Scotland in general, but the city of Glasgow in particular. It highlighted how patterns of social exclusion vary in local circumstances. In particular, comparisons between minority ethnic groups and the white population were less stark in Glasgow than at the UK level, because of the very high levels of social deprivation experienced in the general population in this area. The analysis suggested that the high incidence of self-employment within the Pakistani and Chinese communities has acted as a buffer to wider discrimination in the labour market, and has provided at least some opportunities for upward mobility. However, the paper also found evidence of continued problems of racial discrimination and harassment, and growing concern about racial attacks. References Jones, T. (1996) Britain’s Ethnic Minorities: An Analysis of the Labour Force Survey (Second Edition) London: Policy Studies Institute Jones, T. (1998a) ‘Ethnic Minorities and Social Exclusion’. Report for Glasgow Regeneration Alliance Social Inclusion Inquiry. Modood, T., Berthoud, R., Lakey, J., Nazroo, J., Smith, P., Virdee, S. and Beishon, S. (1997) Ethnic Minorities in Britain: Diversity and Disadvantage. London: Policy Studies Institute
Ralph Fevre ’s work on ethnicity and labour markets was a precursor of the approach to economic development later popularised by Saskia Sassen. The idea was that some things that sociology could shed light on (racial discrimination, the dynamics of international migration from less developed countries) made available cheap labour, which made possible a particular kind of comparatively low (capital) investment development. The ‘cheap labour solution’, which was tried in various branches of British manufacturing, relied on intensive use of particular technologies and actually increased demand for low wage labour rather than increasing it. This was not, in the end, a solution to problems of competitiveness. In the textile sector which provided most the data for Fevre’s work the firms that didn’t invest at all went to the wall straight away but the ones that used the cheap labour solution involving migrants from (mainly) Pakistan and Bangladesh only staved off the inevitable competition for a brief interval. The competition was largely the Italian textile firms of Prado, including Benetton, which helped provide the model of post-Fordism in the work of
2
People with family origins in the Indian sub-continent but who were born and lived in East Africa before coming to Britain 15
Piore and Sabel and did not rely on cheap labour. Fevre returned to the theme of economic development and migration with the 1998 journal article. References Fevre R., Cheap Labour and Racial Discrimination, Aldershot: Gower, 1984; Fevre R., ‘Racism and Cheap Labour in UK Wool Textiles’ in H. Newby et al (eds.) Restructuring Capital: Recession and Reorganisation in Industrial Society, London: Macmillan, 19pp., 1985. Fevre R. ‘Labour Migration and Freedom of Movement in the European Union: Social Exclusion and Economic Development’, International Planning Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 75-92, 1998 Fevre’s paper on trade unions was a spin-off from the earlier research that was published as part of a special edition designed to take a second look at Michael Banton’s Racial Competition Theory. This was an early example of rational action theory in British sociology that suggested, amongst other things, that White workers were competing with Black workers in order to achieve economic ends and that racial discrimination served a purpose towards these ends. The paper used empirical data to criticise Banton’s arguments about competition between White and Black workers. It was suggested that arguments such as these were made in ignorance of the real distribution of power that might affect the distribution of jobs or relative wage rates. Contrary to Racial Competition Theory/Rational Action Theory the location of power to affect labour-market processes was a matter of empirical investigation but in most cases the power to determine these rested with employers rather than workers or their representatives. References Fevre R., ‘Racial Discrimination and Competition in British Trade Unions’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 8, 4, pp. 563- 580, 1985. Fevre’s book, The Sociology of Labour Markets, theorised some of the insights gained in the earlier empirical work, and discussed the best way to theorise the discrimination practiced by employers in the context of wider labour market processes. In particular it was shown that discrimination could occur in a wide variety of situations where employers were pursuing ends, for example, positively-sanctioned economic, technical and organisational goals, which were not normally associated with discrimination. The book also considered the question of who had the power to enforce their construction of the labour market (for example White workers or employers) in a developed theoretical context.
Reference: Fevre R., The Sociology of Labour Markets, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, viii + 196pp., 1992.
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Ethnicity, education and social justice Contribution by Stephen Gorard and Patrick White Is there a growing ethnic achievement gap? In a review of research on the differential attainment of ethnic minority students at school, Gillborn and Gipps (1996) presented data to substantiate their claim that in terms of average exam scores in Brent ‘the gap grew between the highest and lowest achieving groups (Asian and African Caribbean respectively)’ (p.21). The figures they used are reproduced in Table 3, while they make similar claims on the basis of similar evidence about other outcomes measures, and about other LEAs. But these figures do not support the conclusions drawn by the authors. The ethnic group with the highest proportionate improvement is the African Caribbeans, and therefore the gap between the highest and lowest achieving groups is actually getting smaller. Several other examples given by Gillborn and Gipps (1996) show that the apparent underachievement of African Caribbean pupils is declining. Yet the summary of their review of evidence states again ‘in many LEAs the gap between the highest and lowest achieving groups has increased’. The authors have committed what has been referred to as the politicians’ error, and therefore converted some encouraging signs into a depressing educational trend (Gorard 2000). This confusion exaggerates their otherwise reasonable claims about the differential performance by ethnic group, and left unchecked might influence the allocation of government money, or even the funding of educational research. Most crucially, the attention paid to differences in attainment between ethnic groups obscures much larger differences, such as those between rich and poor or between different language groups. This re-analysis of their data was published alongside a short discussion of the implications for their findings (White and Gorard, 1999). Table 3 - The gap at 5 GCSE A*-C between ethnic minority groups in Brent Group* 1991 1993 Asian 30.0 38.0 White 26.9 32.3 African Caribbean 19.1 25.6 *Ethnic classification is from the original study
Raw change 8.0 5.4 6.5
Ratio 1.27 1.20 1.34
The Welsh language and ethnic minorities There is a potential problem in the education policy of Wales. English remains the most popularly spoken UK language, even in Wales, and is one of the most commonly spoken in the world. Welsh, on the other hand, is spoken nowhere else. English is also the language of government, and the powerful, in Britain. Some people, including those moving to Wales temporarily, may see the business of learning Welsh at school, as overcrowding an already full curriculum, and as ancillary to the business of getting on, and some of these are prepared to ‘buy into a little England’ by paying for private education to evade the language requirements of the national curriculum. Forcing everyone to study a minority language may, therefore, 17
disadvantage local pupils and encourage in-migrant families to use cheap fee-paying schools with very poor facilities, so that despite the cultural advantages of the current Welsh language policy in education, it may be inadvertently contributing to increased racial segregation in the classrooms of schools in South Wales (Gorard 1997a). Work at Cardiff also shows that families most concerned with the Welsh language and Welsh ethos of their chosen schools are also the most concerned that the other students are mostly white (Gorard, 1997b). In the light of this, it is perhaps no surprise that several families of ethnic minority origin are willing to pay to avoid the Welsh language. The act of balancing the rights of the Welsh, English, and other language speakers in Wales is a delicate one. On the one hand, Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child talks of the right to learn in their own language, even where this language is in a minority in the state or community. In Wales it is not clear whether this is a right to Welsh schooling in English-speaking areas, or to English schooling in Welsh speaking areas, or to Urdu schooling anywhere in the UK. The principle of territoriality’ does not work in the UK. Williams argued that minority language groups in a nation state must be ensured of an education providing a future equal to that of the major language speakers. In Switzerland, for example, this means a parity of esteem between languages that does not exist in the UK. In Singapore, on the other hand, this means a (near) universal language of education, and a truly ‘in everything’ multi-lingual nation state, which does not exist in the UK either. However, a major difference between Welsh and Punjabi, for example, is that Welsh is not commonly spoken elsewhere in the world. Pragmatists would see this as a reason for allowing it to disappear as an educational, as opposed to academic, language, while those who see endangered languages as analogous to threatened animal species would see this as a reason for the extra protection of Welsh. One solution would be to use the principle of ‘personality’ - to allow each person to be educated in their chosen language. This approach would be consistent with a model of markets in education, but may be too expensive, except in rare cases. For children educated in Welsh to have the same educational and employment chances as their peers educated in English, the laws concerning Welsh might need to be applicable to the rest of the UK, so that a child who wished to enter Higher Education, or a career, through the medium of Welsh would have the same number of opportunities as everyone else. Britain would have to become a truly bilingual society, with Welsh street signs in Kent as well as Gwent, but this is not very likely. It is clear that going to school in Wales at present is seen by some as an educational disadvantage for inmigrant children because of the territoriality principle underlying the National Curriculum orders for Wales. This policy is perhaps the easiest to change. While every child should have the right to learn Welsh, and every school should have a duty to provide appropriate teaching, this second language could be the modern foreign language of the National Curriculum. Families would then have the choice of Welsh (or English) instead of (or as well as) the more usual French, and this choice could be extended to anywhere in the UK. Perhaps most importantly, the modern foreign language requirement of the National Curriculum should include the existing language skills of ethnic minority children, so that children already fluent in Punjabi and English (or Welsh) should not be compelled to study another language, and their bilingualism should receive full
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academic recognition. That this is currently not so is illustrated by the sad tale reported to the researcher of a girl of Pakistani origin who gained 11 A grades in her GCSEs, and had to sit at a prize-giving at her state-funded school, during which she was not even mentioned, and applaud a boy who received the prize for the best GCSE results - 11 at grade A. Her 11 subjects included Urdu, which was not available at the school, and which the school would not even agree to borrow the papers for, so that she had to pay to sit the examinations at another centre. There is a long way to go before there is parity of esteem in the UK. There is at heart a community, or ‘Welsh class’, linking nationalism and language, behaving as a status group in Weberian terms according to Fevre et al. (1997), producing changes by agitation which ‘have been of most benefit to members of this status group’ (p.1), and attempting to monopolise resources through social closure (see also Giggs and Pattie 1994), and hoping also to silence questions about the ensuing language ‘apartheid’ and racism (Williams 1997). References Fevre, R., Denney, D. and Borland, J. (1997) Class, status and party in the analysis of nationalism, Nations and Nationalism, 3, 4, 559-574 Giggs, J. and Pattie, C. (1994) Wales as a plural society, Contemporary Wales, 5, 2543 Gillborn, D. and Gipps, C. (1996) Recent research on the achievements of ethnic minority pupils, London: OFSTED Gorard, S. (1997a) School choice in an established market, Aldershot: Ashgate Gorard S (1997b) Paying for a little England: school choice and the Welsh language, Welsh Journal of Education, 6, 1: 19-32. Gorard, S. (2000) Education and Social Justice, Cardiff: University of Wales Press White, P. and Gorard, S. (1999) ‘Ethnicity, attainment and progress: a cautionary note regarding percentages and percentage points’, Research in Education, 62, 66-69. Williams, C. (1997) ‘Race’ and racism: some reflections on the Welsh context, Contemporary Wales, 8, 112-122
Contribution by Emma Smith Understanding the underachievement of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds According to Gillborn and Youdell (2000), the widespread media attention given to the underachievement of boys has failed to address the real issue; that it is pupils from
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ethnic minority backgrounds who, along with those from the working class, experience the most pronounced inequalities in our education system. It is on the apparent underachievement of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds that this section of the paper will focus, by considering the evidence for the relative underachievement of this group of students. In a recent speech, Trevor Phillips, the newly appointed head of the Commission for Racial Equality, accused teachers of double standards when dealing with black and white pupils and blamed schools for the underachievement of black pupils (Shaw and Thornton, 2003). These claims are supported by research which suggests that black students are four times more likely to be excluded from school than other pupils (Shaw and Thornton 2003), that 16% of pupils who are excluded from school come from an ethnic minority background, nearly half of whom are Afro-Caribbean (who themselves total only 1% of the school population) (Learner 2001), that pupils from certain minority backgrounds are less likely to participate in education post-16 and enter full-time employment upon leaving school (Drew et al 1997), and that the examination performance of pupils from ethnic minority pupils lags behind their white peers (Gillborn and Gipps, 1996). In trying to explain the reasons for the disenchantment of some ethnic minority pupils with the education system, Gillborn and Youdell (2000) point to several factors inherent in what they see as the ‘A-C economy’ of schools which specifically disadvantages pupils from minority groups. They claim that in order to preserve a high league table position, schools use selection, ability testing and streaming as a way of maximising the number of pupils who pass the all-important 5 or more A*-C GCSE grade threshold. The authors argue that strategies involving streaming effectively bar pupils for whom English is an additional language from the top sets. Ability testing, whose predictors are based on ‘white’ norms, disadvantage minority pupils and this has a knock-on effect on option choices and access to the higher-tier examination papers. However, some of these findings presented within this underachievement discourse have been contested on methodological grounds by other writers who suggest occasions when data have been unrepresentative or ambiguously interpreted. The situation is further complicated by difficulties in separating the effect of the interaction between social class and ethnic group, as well as in categorising students according to ethnicity. These are important issues, as they have a profound impact on how we understand the nature of any underachievement of these groups of pupils. There has been a great deal of confusion regarding the categorisation of the various ethnic groups both by researchers (DES 1985a) and by the respondents themselves (Drew and Demack 1998). The following examples show that a finer discrimination between the different ethnic groups reveals different and sometimes contrasting trends: -
Indian pupils are generally considered to be more likely to achieve higher results than other pupils from South Asia (Gillborn and Gipps 1996), but in many studies pupils from this area have been grouped as one (Drew and Gray 1990 and 1991, DfEE 1996, Gillborn 1997), which makes further analysis of patterns impossible.
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-
Despite the large size of its community, information specific to the performance of Pakistani pupils is sparse. This, coupled with the limitations outlined above, has added to a contrasting picture but in general, research suggests that their performance is lower than that of white pupils (Gillborn and Gipps 1996).
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Pupils from the Bangladeshi community have often been regarded as performing the weakest in examinations and in Birmingham have been more likely than any other ethnic group to leave school with no qualifications. However, there are exceptions to this pattern, in terms of examination results, qualifications at age 16 and the number of Bangladeshi pupils entering higher education (Barnard 1999, Gillborn and Gipps 1996).
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The issue of the achievement of ‘black’ or African-Caribbean pupils has been particularly complicated by the problems of categorising ethnic group. Nevertheless, research has suggested that African-Caribbean pupils perform less well than their broadly grouped Asian or white counterparts (see, for example, Gillborn and Gipps 1996).
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The broad categorisation of white pupils is rarely considered. This homogeneous group might include pupils from Eastern Europe as well as those from the Travelling community. Data specific to these groups is difficult to obtain, but a recent OFSTED document stated that Traveller pupils are the group ‘most at risk in the education system’ and whose low attainment in secondary school is ‘a matter of serious concern’ (OFSTED 1999, p.7).
During the past decade or so, the education research establishment has seen an increase in the volume of quantitative research focusing on assessing the differences between groups of pupils. It is therefore remarkable that ethnic groups do not seem to have been included in this avalanche of data and statistics. Up to date, sound research on the relative performance of ethnic minority pupils is hard to come by, and what little does exist is often out of date and fraught with methodological inconsistencies. One example is provided in the section above by Gorard and White above, and Smith (2002) presents further examples of where a re-interpretation of proportional changes in examination performance over time can present a very different picture of ethnic minority attainment in schools. The available research data, notwithstanding their shortcomings, do not support the notion that there is an increasing performance gap between white pupils and those from an ethnic minority background. However, there are indications that differences between certain ethnic groups (for example between pupils of Indian and Bangladeshi parentage) might exist. Nevertheless, the contribution of different socio-economic groups to these differences cannot be ignored and future studies will need to take them into account. Until there is a database of reliable, nationally based statistical evidence, the notion of the widespread underachievement or under-performance of ethnic minority pupils must surely be treated with caution.
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References Barnard, N., (1999), ‘Asian students ahead in University challenge’, Times Educational Supplement, 28th May 1999. DES, (1985a), Education for All - a brief guide to the main issues of the report, HMSO, London. DfEE, (1996), Youth Cohort Study: trends in the activities and experiences of 16-18 year olds in England and Wales 1985-1994, HMSO, London. 7 Drew, D., Gray, J., (1990), The fifth-year examination achievements of black young people in England and Wales, Educational Research, 32(2), pp107-117. Drew, D., Gray, J., (1991), The black-white gap in examination results: a statistical critique of a decade’s research, New Community, 7(2), pp159-172. Drew, D., Demack, S., (1998), A league apart: statistics in the study of ‘race’ and education, in Researching Racism in Education: Politics, Theory and Practice, Connolly, P., and Troyna, B., (eds.), University Press, Buckingham. Drew, D., Gray, J., Sporton, D., (1997), Ethnic differences in the educational participation of 16-19 year olds, in Ethnicity in the 1991 Census, Kam, V., (ed.), The Stationery Office, London. Gillborn, D., (1997), Young, black and failed by school: the market, education reform and black students, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1(1), pp65-87. Gillborn, D., Gipps, C., (1996), Recent research on the achievement of ethnic minority pupils, OFSTED, HMSO, London. Gillborn, D., Youdell, D., (2000), Rationing Education - Policy, Practice, Reform and Equity, Open University Press, Buckingham. Learner, S., (2001), ‘Black boys inspired by gospel choir’, Times Educational Supplement, 19th October 2001. Shaw, M., Thornton, K., 2003, ‘Race chief slates schools’, Times Educational Supplement, 24th January 2003, p1. Smith, E., (2002), Understanding Underachievement: an investigation into the differential attainment of secondary school pupils, Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Wales, Cardiff.
The policing of minority groups Trevor Jones has a long-standing interest in the relationship between policing and disadvantaged groups, within his broader work on police governance and accountability. In 1996, he jointly carried out a review of the literature on policing
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and disaffected communities, commissioned by the Northern Ireland Standing Commission on Human Rights (Jones and Newburn 1996). This analysis was later developed in collaboration with Mike Maguire at Cardiff, when they provided input to a Department for International Development (DFID) project exploring police reform in developing countries (Jones and Maguire 1998). In 1999, Jones jointly conducted research for the Home Office Policing and Reducing Crime Unit that explored ways of improving police consultation and relationships with what were termed ‘hard to reach’ groups (Jones and Newburn 2001). This broad label covered a variety of groups who have traditionally experienced problematic relationships with the police, and included gay and lesbian communities, young people, travellers, the economically disadvantaged and a range of other groups. A key focus within this was the experiences of ethnic minority groups, and a number of case studies of policecommunity relations in particular areas were carried out. The study found that although significant improvements have been made in police-community relations, there is still much work to be done. In particular, young ethnic minority people continue to experience the twin problem of ‘over-policing’ (as targets of police powers) and ‘under-protection’ (as victims of crime and harassment). The study concluded with a number of recommendations to policy-makers to help ‘widen access’ and improve police relationships with disadvantaged groups. Jones’s broader interest in the relationship between the police and ethnic minorities was recognised in 1998, when he was invited to provide a chapter on police and race relations to the international Encyclopaedia of Applied Ethics. This chapter provided a detailed summary and overview of the US and UK research on policing and ethnic minorities (Jones 1998b). References Jones, T. (1998b) ‘Police and Race Relations’. In Chadwick, R. (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics. San Diego, CA: Academic Press Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (1996) ‘Policing and Disaffected Communities’. In the Twenty First Report of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, 199596. London: HMSO Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (2001) Widening Access: Improving Police Relationships with ‘Hard-to-Reach’ Groups. Policing and Reducing Crime Unit Research Report. London: Home Office Jones, T. and Maguire, M. (2000) ‘Policing of Marginalised Populations’. In Clegg, I., Hunt, R. and Whetton, J.(eds) Policy Guidance on Support to Policing in Developing Countries Centre for Development Studies. Swansea: University of Wales, Swansea
Amanda Robinson has also conducted research on an aspect of ethnic minority experience of policing. Although limited, the available evidence paints a grim picture for black battered women, as they are subject to discriminatory treatment based on race, gender, and domestic violence victimization. According to Black’s theory of law, women of colour should receive less police protection afforded them in the form of arrest because application of the law varies inversely with social status. As the experiences of black domestic violence victims with the police remain an under-
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researched issue, her study focused on the police arrest decision for these victims compared to victims of other races. Two important research questions were answered: (1) is the arrest rate for black battered women significantly lower compared to other domestic violence victims, and (2) are there different factors influencing the police decision to arrest for these victims compared to other victims? Using official data and police officer surveys from a medium-sized police department in the United States, separate models were tested to determine whether there were differences in the factors that police officers took into consideration when dealing with black female victims (n=273) compared to other victims (n=192). The findings indicated that on several counts the police treated black battered women as less deserving of legal protection. Specifically, four variables lowered the chances that officers would make arrests on behalf of black battered women: victim age, suspect age, the victim had a probable drug or alcohol problem, and children were present at the scene. Perhaps the most troubling finding with regard to differential police response to black battered women was the role that children played in the decision to arrest. Police were significantly less likely to make arrests when black battered women were also mothers, whereas for other victims the odds of arrest more than doubled when children were present. When officers fail to make arrests for black battered women who are also mothers, they fail to open the doors of many criminal justice and social service agencies that would be otherwise opened. Drawing upon the feminist and policing literatures, the results and implications of these findings are discussed in the paper. Robinson, Amanda L., & Chandek, Meghan S. (2000). Differential Police Response to Black Battered Women. Women & Criminal Justice, 12(2/3), 29-61.
Media images Research regarding the portrayals of minority ethnic groups on television has repeatedly indicated that these depictions emphasise negative and stereotypical images. The potential impact of such representations is of singular concern when the characterisations revolve around issues related to crime and violence. According to the cultivation framework, programming that consistently depicts the minorities in the criminal justice system in roles that elicit fear from viewers may encourage and reinforce racial stereotyping. To assess the prevalence of this conceivably detrimental relationship, Amanda Robinson’s paper provides the findings from a systematic, content analysis of American prime time television. Television portrayals of police use of force represent especially arousing scenarios regarding police-citizen encounters and convey vital information about how race factors into the criminal justice system. A two-week sample of prime time television was constructed for the Fall 1997 season. Police officers and perpetrators appearing on all fictional programs were examined, with specific attention paid to the race of the characters and the aggression involved in the interaction. Analyses were performed to determine which variables significantly influenced police use of force on television. Findings from her study indicated that young minority perpetrators were at greater risk of experiencing excessive force at the hands of police officers on television than were their Caucasian counterparts. Given that police authority is often viewed as legitimate authority, this may translate into a belief that the behaviours of minority groups are highly problematic and must be controlled by whatever means necessary. This finding also
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points to the danger of television conveying distorted images of young minority males, which may cultivate fears of youth violence. Implications regarding the portrayals of minority groups on crime shows are discussed. Mastro, Dana E., & Robinson, Amanda L. (2000). Cops and Crooks: Images of Minorities on Prime Time Television. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28(5), 385-396.
The minority ethnic experience in specific communities Women in between: A study of the experiences of Bangladeshi Women Living in Tower Hamlets. (Joanna Latimer, with Chris Phillipson and Nilufar Ahmed, Keele University). Funded by the Nuffield Foundation Bangladeshi people form one of the most socially marginalised and poor of all ethnic minority groups. There is very little research on the social life of Bangladeshi women living in the UK. Working closely with local community groups the study explores the experiences and changing roles and responsibilities of Bangladeshi Women living in Tower Hamlets. The study involves older as well as younger Bangladeshi women and field work includes participant observation, focus groups, interviews and questionnaires. The study presents an accurate picture of everyday life in Tower Hamlets for today’s Bangladeshi woman with regards to home, family, studies, employment, health and marriage. Findings are being used to inform development of local and national health, education and social policy that supports Bangladeshi women’s greater access to important life chances. Publications include: Women in transition: a study of the experiences of Bangladeshi women living in Tower Hamlets. (with Chris Phillipson and Nilufar Ahmed). Bristol: The Policy Press.(forthcoming). Transformations of Womanhood Through Migration. (with Nilufar Ahmed and Chris Phillipson). Keele University School of Social Relations: Occasional Paper Series. 2001. ISBN: 1900842022 Women in between: A study of the experience of Bangladeshi Women Living in Tower Hamlets. 2002. (with Phillipson C and Ahmed N). Final Report to the Nuffield Foundation. Women in Between: A Study of the Experiences of Bangladeshi Women Living in Tower Hamlets. End of year Report. Nuffield Foundation. with Nilufar Ahmed and Chris Phillipson. 2001.
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The experience of Black and minority ethnic children living in the South Wales valleys (Jonathan Scourfield, Huw Beynon, Jonathan Evans and Wahida Shah) This qualitative social research project for the Valleys Anti-racist Initiative (funded by Barnardo’s) consisted of semi-structured interviews with minority ethnic children and their parents or carers. The leisure activities and friendships of the children interviewed were fairly typical of children in the area. Families were generally positive about living in the valleys. Most of the children wanted to be living elsewhere in 10 years’ time but this was mainly down to a perception of the valleys as being rather dull. In terms of experience of racism, there was a considerable variety of experiences according to class and gender amongst other factors. In the sample of children the victims of the most severe racist incidents were boys and it was White boys who were the main perpetrators of the bullying and violence. Racism seemed to be an everyday possibility. Some children said they were always aware of it, others had experienced violent racism and some said they had experienced no racism at all. There was a great deal of name-calling, which was the most upsetting form of racism for several of the children. There was also experience of racist graffiti and some bullying. There were various strategies used for coping with racism. These included relying on the support of white friends, ignoring racist comments and fighting back. Most children saw themselves as different from other valleys children. No child saw him or herself as ‘Black’. The children with two Pakistani parents tended to see themselves as Pakistani but their parents saw their children as British. There was a variety of identities amongst the dual heritage children. Identity was a challenge for White mothers who have limited access to alternative sources of cultural affirmation of non-White identity for their children. Religion was very important to the Muslim families. Religion and (Asian) language can be central to their identity. Affiliation to the valleys was strong for the children of some of the families, but for most their locality did not feature strongly in their identity. Welshness was not a major feature for most although it was for the children who live with white parents and carers. Whilst there were some positive reports of the police and of certain schools, there seems to be a general sense of institutional absence in relation to minority cultures and anti-racism. Publications Scourfield, J., Evans, J., Shah, W. and Beynon, H. (2002) The Experience of Black and Minority Ethnic Children Living in The South Wales Valleys, research report for the Valleys Anti-racist Initiative, Cardiff. Scourfield, J., Evans, J., Shah, W. and Beynon, H. (2002) Responding to the experiences of minority ethnic children in virtually all-white communities. Child and Family Social Work, 7, 3: 161-176.
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Racism in Ely, Cardiff This research was funded by Barnardo’s and conducted by Jonathan Evans and Fiona Wood along with a team of interviewers recruited from black and ethnic minority backgrounds; and EMBRACE (Ethnic Minority and Black Reference Action Coalition in Ely). The research combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection: questionnaires and structured interviews were used with respondents. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 40 black and ethnic minority residents in Ely. The majority of respondents lived on a low income and 90% of respondents spoke English at home. A third of the sample was able to speak a language other than English. Community Relations The majority (64%) of respondents stated that they were satisfied with their accommodation. However, residents of council-owned houses were less likely to be satisfied with their accommodation than those residing in privately owned houses. Most respondents liked the sense of ‘belonging to Ely’; and having both family and friends living nearby. Respondents were most likely to express a dislike of ‘troublesome children on the streets’; abuse from local residents; and the ‘poor public image of Ely’. Only 18% agreed that most of their friends were drawn from their own ethnic community. The majority of respondents had friends from other ethnic groups. The majority received a great deal of support from their family and enjoyed good relations with their neighbours. Experience of Service Provision The most frequently used services were transport, shops and schools. The least used services were Barnardos and Social Services. 50% of the sample thought that services could be improved in some way. The majority of respondents considered the shops in Ely inadequate. Racial Discrimination and Harassment 39% of the respondents had experienced racial discrimination by service providers. Experiences ranged across such services as education, housing and library services. The police service, however, was the most frequently cited source of discrimination. Discrimination usually arose because the police had failed to take a complaint seriously. 36% of respondents were reluctant to report crime and harassment because they perceived the police as being unwilling to act on complaints. Over half the sample had experienced harassment in Ely. Much of this was in the form of verbal abuse from local people. Some cases of school bullying were also racially motivated. In some cases racial harassment took the form of physical assaults and criminal damage (e.g. racist graffiti). Fear of Crime 20% of respondents did not feel safe in their home at night. 49% of respondents said they did not feel safe on the streets at night.
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Conclusions The respondents appeared to be reasonably well supported by family and other social networks. Relations with white people in the neighbourhood were generally good. Although respondents suffered from many of the same problems as their White counterparts, there was a discrete strand of experience that is unique to ethnic minority residents in Ely: racial discrimination and racial harassment. References Evans, J.W. and Wood, F. (1999) Living in Ely: The Experience of Service Provision and Harassment Among the Black and Ethnic Minority Population. Research report for Barnardo’s, Cardiff. ISBN 1 86182 0151. Evans, J.W. and Wood, F. (forthcoming) Ely: a ‘dangerous place’ revisited. Contemporary Wales
Research into Ethnic Minorities in Monmouthshire Patrick White and Trevor Welland have recently been contracted by Monmouthshire County Council to conduct research on the ethnic minority population of the county. The aims of the reset are, first, to develop a demographic profile of minority ethnic groups in the county and, secondly, to consult with individuals and groups from the minority populations to ascertain their issues needs and experiences. Key support agencies will also be identified, and the provision of services specifically targeted at minority ethnic groups will be documented. The research is intended to lay the foundations for an awareness-raising programme to encourage more communication between the county council and the ethnic minority population regarding the service provision of the former and the needs of the latter. Methods The statistical profile of the ethnic minority population of the county will be constructed using data from existing secondary datasets held by governmental or other agencies. Relevant agencies will be consulted for further sources of information that the researchers may be unaware of at present. A preliminary examination of Census 2001 data has already been started. The statistical profile will document the following areas: 1. the variety of ethnic backgrounds within Monmouthshire, including the country of birth of members of the ethnic minority population. 2. the different languages spoken by members of the ethnic minority community. 3. the religious beliefs and institutions present among the ethnic minority community. If the relevant data is available disaggregated by ethnic group, the following areas will also be investigated and compared to the population of Monmouth, Wales and the UK more widely:
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4. 5. 6. 7.
the economic status of BME groups the educational levels of BME groups the health of BME groups the housing status of BME groups
Initial investigations at this level will use Census 2001 classifications of ethnic minority groups, although the suitability and accuracy of these will be assessed following the second stage of the research (see below). The ‘statistical profile’ will serve two purposes in the research design. In addition to its use as empirical evidence, it will provide a ‘population’ from which a participants for the next stage of the research can be selected, via stratified random sampling techniques. This will allow informants for the second stage of the research to be selected randomly (allowing statistical estimates of generalisation to be made) whilst ensuring that all major groups are represented. The second stage of the research will comprise a series of individual interviews with representatives from advice and protection agencies and focused group interviews with cross-generational representatives from ethnic minority communities. The data generated from these interviews will be used to: 8. Explore meanings of the term ‘ethnic minority’ and, where appropriate, suggest alternative definitions or vocabularies of description 9. Outline and describe the nature of the interfaces and current relationships of BME representatives with Council and other agencies 10. Explore and describe the range of ethnic minority experiences of integration and inclusion/exclusion 11. Outline and describe religious association and practice of BME groups in the county The focused group interviews and the resources used within them (such as Census data, illustrative interview material drawn from existing empirical material with broadly congruent aims, and relevant media representations of the experiences of ethnic minorities) will serve a dual purpose. In addition to providing qualitative data that explore and analyse the experience of ethnic minorities across Monmouthshire they will also fulfil an awareness-raising function. Data gathered during these interviews will be used, alongside the ‘statistical profile’, to highlight key problems with communication and inform the construction of a proposal for an ‘awareness-raising’ programme to be implemented by the Council or other appropriate agencies. In addition to the empirical findings of the study, the final research report will include a detailed proposal of this kind.
Political participation Ethnic minorities and the National Assembly for Wales
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Research by Paul Chaney and Ralph Fevre Descriptive representation occurs when elected politicians are typical of the larger class of persons that they represent, such that blacks represent blacks, disabled people represent disabled people and so on. Research undertaken in the context of the UK Government’s devolution programme helps us to judge the strength of the demand for descriptive representation amongst political activists and elites. In the case of women, one grouping where proportional descriptive representation has (almost) been achieved, substantial benefits are perceived, for example in relation to improvements in the deliberative function of democracy. In the case of other ‘minority’ groupings the absence of descriptive representation is thought to have entailed significant costs. This failure has necessitated the development of complex bureaucratic structures that are seen as a poor substitute for descriptive representation. In this and other respects the innovations in governance introduced with devolution have helped to stimulate demand for descriptive representation. This demand exceeds the supply of representation on offer and descriptive representation will be the focus of an increasing amount of debate and controversy in future. Chaney, P. and Fevre, R. (2002) Is There A Demand For Descriptive Representation? Evidence From The UK’s Devolution Programme, Political Studies, Vol 50, 897-915
Following the establishment of a national legislature in Wales in 1999 the third sector has entered into a pioneering cross-sectoral partnership with the Welsh government. This realignment of the sector is one of a number of innovative measures backed by legal duties and responsibilities that allocates a key role to voluntary organisations in order to pursue the aim of inclusive governance. Inclusiveness has been the ‘foundation stone’ of devolution in Wales and has emerged in part response to the exclusion of so-called ‘minority’ groupings from the formal structures of decisionmaking and resource allocation in Welsh society. A paper in Voluntas reports on the results of a research project that has studied the new structures of devolved governance, the expectations and participation of voluntary organisations representing three marginalised or ‘minority’ groupings - women, disabled people and those from an ethnic minority background. The discussion also outlines participant’s views on the progress towards an inclusive system of devolved governance. Our findings reveal that despite varying levels of expectation expressed by ‘minority’ voluntary groups that devolved governance would overcome patterns of exclusion and engage them in the process of government, active engagement of minority groups in policy making has been a feature of the Assembly’s first months. Nevertheless, formidable challenges face both sectoral ‘partners’ in a new system of governance, not least in creating organisational structures that facilitate partnership working in the devolved polity. Chaney P and Fevre R - Inclusive Governance and ‘Minority’ Groups: The Role of the Third Sector in Wales, Voluntas - International Journal of Third Sector Research, 12, 2, (2001) pp131-156 ISSN 0957-8765
Other relevant publications by Chaney and Fevre
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Chaney P and Fevre R – Ron Davies and the cult of Inclusiveness: Devolution and Participation in Wales, Contemporary Wales,14, (2001) pp21-49 ISSN 0951 - 4937 Chaney P and Fevre R – Inclusive Governance and ‘Minority’ Groups: The Role of the Third Sector in Wales, Voluntas – International Journal of Third Sector Research, 12, 2, (2001) pp131-156 ISSN 0957-8765 Chaney P, Hall T Dicks B Inclusive Governance? The Case of ‘Minority’ and voluntary sector groups and the National Assembly for Wales, Contemporary Wales,13, pp182-202 ISSN 0951 - 4937 Williams C and Chaney P – Devolution and Identities: The experience of Ethnic Minorities in Wales, Soundings – A Journal of Politics and Culture, 18, pp169-184 ISSN 1362 6620 Williams C and Chaney P Inclusive Government for Excluded Groups: Ethnic Minorities, New Governance- New Democracy?, Post Devolution Wales Chaney P Hall T Pithouse, University of Wales Press, Cardiff (2001) pp78-101 ISBN 0-70831678-6 Chaney, P. and Fevre, R. (2002) Is There A Demand For Descriptive Representation? Evidence From The UK’s Devolution Programme, Political Studies, Vol 50, 897–915 Chaney, P. (2002) ‘New and Unexplored Possibilities’: The Welsh Legislature’s Statutory Equality Duty, Equal Opportunities International, 21, 1, 19 – 42. Chaney, P. (2002) An Absolute Duty’: The Assembly’s Statutory Equality Of Opportunity Imperative -The Standing Committee On Equality Of Opportunity, Chpt 18 in Barry Jones, J. and Osmond, J. (eds). Building A Civic Culture: Policy, Process and Institutional Change in the National Assembly, Volume II, 2001-02, Cardiff, IWA. Pp.225 – 243. Chaney, P. and Fevre, R. (2002) The Equality Policies of the Government of the National Assembly for Wales and their Implementation: July 1999 to January 2002: A Report for: The Equal Opportunities Commission, Disability Rights Commission, Commission for Racial Equality, and Institute of Welsh Affairs, Cardiff, IWA, ISBN 1 871 726 86 7 Chaney, P. and Fevre, R. (2002) An Absolute Duty: A Report on the Welsh Assembly’s Equality Policies and their Implementation July 1999 to January 2002, Cardiff, IWA, ISBN 1 871 726 859 Chaney, P. and Williams, C. (2002) Getting Involved: Civic and Political Life in Wales, chapter 11, in Williams, C. (ed) A Tolerant Nation? - Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Wales, Cardiff, University of Wales Press. Chaney, P. (2002) ‘Social Capital and the Participation of Marginalized Groups in Government: A Study of the Statutory Partnership between the Third Sector and Devolved Government in Wales’, Public Policy and Administration, 17, 4, 20-38.
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